Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:11:41.598Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prejudice Unveiled: The Niqab in Court–

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2014

Lori Chambers  and
Jen Roth
Lori Chambers
Affiliation:
Department of Women’s StudiesLakehead University
Jen Roth
Affiliation:
Department of Women’s StudiesLakehead University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The public use of the niqab and other religious face coverings is a source of considerable debate in Western nations. The veiled Muslim woman is often constructed as “other,” reviled as backward, represented as in need of rescue, or associated with Islamic extremism. Despite widespread racist attitudes, officially, Canadians purport to support multiculturalism and the equality of all people under the law as guaranteed under section 15 of the Charter. In a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision, R v NS, the Court had to consider the right of a Muslim woman to wear her niqab while testifying in a sexual assault trial. In “balancing” the conflict between the religious rights of NS and the section 7 rights of the accused to a full and fair defense, the Court ignored the security of the person and equality rights of NS. The Court instead legitimated anti-Muslim stereotypes and reiterated rape myths that had ostensibly been overturned.

Résumé

Le port du niqab et d’autres habits religieux couvrant le visage a soulevé des débats intenses dans les pays occidentaux. La femme musulmane voilée est souvent représentée comme « autre », vilipendée comme rétrograde, représentée comme une personne à secourir ou associée à l’extrémisme islamique. En dépit d’attitudes racistes répandues, les Canadiens et Canadiennes prétendent soutenir le multiculturalisme et l’égalité de tous garantis par la loi en vertu de l’article 15 de la Charte. Dans une décision récente de la Cour suprême du Canada, R c NS, la Cour a dû examiner le droit d’une femme musulmane de porter le niqab lors de son témoignage dans un procès pour agression sexuelle. En assurant l’équilibre entre les droits religieux de NS et le droit, en vertu de l’article 7, de l’accusé à une défense pleine et entière, la Cour a ignoré la sécurité de la personne et les droits à l’égalité de NS. En revanche, la Cour a légitimé les stéréotypes islamophobes et réitéré les mythes du viol qui avaient manifestement été renversés.

Keywords

niqabsexual assaultmulticulturalismequalitydemeanor evidenceniqabagression sexuellemulticulturalismeégalitépreuve fondée sur le comportement
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , December 2014 , pp. 381 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

–

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References

1 Fournier, Pascale and See, Erica, “The ‘Naked Face’ of Secular Exclusion: Bill 94 and the Privatization of Belief,” Windsor Journal of Access to Justice 30 (2012): 63Google Scholar; Rebouché, Rachel, “The Substance of Substantive Equality: Gender Equality and Turkey’s Headscarf Debate,” American University International Law Review 24 (2009): 711Google Scholar; Vakulenko, Anastasia, “Islamic Headscarves and the European Convention on Human Rights: An Intersectional Perspective,” Social and Legal Issues 16, no. 2 (2007): 183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Abu-Lughod, Lila, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others,” American Anthropologist 104, no. 3 (2002): 783–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Under section 15 of the Charter, equality is guaranteed. Section 28 also specifically protects the equality of women: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution Act, 1982, online at http://laws -lois.justice.ga.ca/eng/const/page-15.html.

4 Under section 2, all Canadians are guaranteed “freedom of conscience and religion” and “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression”: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution Act, 1982, online at http://laws-lois.justice.ga.ca/eng/const/page-15.html.

5 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution Act, 1982, online at http://laws-lois.justice.ga.ca/eng/const/page-15.html.

6 R v NS, [2012] SCJ No 72 at para 94.

7 Intersectional analysis places the gendered body within a broad cultural context to consider how race, class, ability, age, sexuality, racialization, etc. work to destabilize static ideas about gender experience: Dhruvarajan, Vanaja, “The Multiple Oppression of Women of Colour,” in Racism in Canada, ed. McKague, Ormond (Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers, 1991), 101–4Google Scholar; Brown, Rosemary, “Overcoming Racism and Sexism—How?,” in Racism in Canada, ed. McKague, Ormond (Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers, 1991), 163–77.Google Scholar

8 R v NS (2009) OJ No 1766 at para 80.

9 Ibid. at para 80.

10 Ibid. at para 29.

11 R v NS, [2012] at para 4.

12 R v NS (2009), 95 OR (3d) 735.

13 R v NS (2010) ONCA 670, 102 OR (3d) 161.

14 LEAF is a national organization promoting women’s legal rights. The Barbara Schlifer Clinic provides support to victims of violence. The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations promotes understanding and goodwill between Muslim and non-Muslim Canadians. And the Canadian Civil Liberties Association intervenes in the courts in cases involving violations of civil freedoms. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (Ontario), the Muslim Canadian Congress, the South Asian Legal Clinic, and the Barreau du Québec also intervened, but their briefs are less relevant to the current argument. The Criminal Lawyers’ Association and the Muslim Canadian Congress argued in favor of the accused and insisted on the importance of demeanor evidence in a full and fair trial: http://aspercentre.ca and http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/12/20.

15 Brief of the Barbara Schlifer Clinic at para 28: http://schliferclinic.com/advocacy-and-social-change/legal/facial-coverings.html.

16 R v NS, [2012] at para 1.

17 Ibid. at para 9.

18 Ibid. at para 13.

19 Ibid. at para 16.

20 Ibid. at para 21.

21 Ibid. at para 37.

22 Ibid. at para 38.

23 Ibid. at para 60.

24 Ibid. at para 66.

25 Ibid. at para 68.

26 R v Ewanchuk [1999] 1 SCR; Constance Backhouse, Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada 1900–1975 (Toronto: Irwin Law and the Osgoode Society for Legal History, 2008)Google Scholar; Randall, Melanie, “Sexual Assault Law and ‘Ideal Victims’: Credibility, Resistance and Victim Blaming,” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 23, no. 2 (2010)Google Scholar; and Sheehy, Elizabeth, “Evidence Law and the ‘Credibility Testing’ of Women: A Comment on the E Case,” Queensland University of Technology Law and Justice Journal 2 (2010): 157.Google Scholar

27 R v NS, [2012] at para 69.

28 Ibid. at para 86.

29 Ibid. at para 82.

30 Ibid. at para 106.

31 Ibid. at para 95.

32 Ibid. at para 4.

33 http://www.cbc.ca/.../toronto-court-rules-woman-must-remove-niqab-to-testify. Weisman J. is 75 and faces mandatory retirement, and this may well be his final judgment.

34 Sherene Razack has argued, “Muslims are stigmatized, put under surveillance and denied full citizenship rights”: Razack, Sherene, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 173CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Arat-Koc, Sedef, “The Disciplinary Boundaries of Canadian Identity after September 11: Civilizational Identity, Multiculturalism, and the Challenge of Anti-Imperialist Feminism,” Social Justice 32, no. 4 (2005): 32–49Google Scholar; Haque, Eve, “Homegrown, Muslim and Other: Tolerance, Secularism, and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” Social Identities 16, no. 1 (2010): 79–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Brief of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, para 1: http://caircan.ca/downloads/CAIRCAN_Factum_33989.

36 Jiwani, Yasmin, Discourses of Denial: Mediations on Race, Gender and Violence (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006), 34–35.Google ScholarSee also Simpson, Jennifer, James, Carl and Mack, Johnny, “Multiculturalism, Colonialism, and Racialization: Conceptual Starting Points,” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 33 (2011): 285–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Ibid. 178. See also Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994).Google Scholar

38 McDonough, Sheila, “Perceptions of the Hijab in Canada,” The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates (2003), 126–30.Google Scholar

39 Hoodfar, Homa,“The Veil in Their Minds and On Our Heads: The Persistence of Colonial Images of Muslim Women,” Resources for Feminist Research/Documents pour recherches féministes 22, no. 3/4 (1993): 2–18Google Scholar; Esposito, John, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Halliday, Fred, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East (London: I. B. Taurus, 1999)Google Scholar; Hoodfar, Homaet al., introduction to The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, eds. Sultana, Sajida, Hoodfar, Homa, and McDonough, Sheila (Toronto: Women’s Press, 2003)Google Scholar, xi–xvii; Huntington, Samuel, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (1993): 22–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meshal, Reem, “Banners of Faith and Identities in Construct: The Hijāb in Canada,” in The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, 72–104Google Scholar; and Kashmerier, Zuhair, The Gulf Within: Canadian Arabs, Racism and the Gulf War (Toronto: J. Lorimer, 1991).Google Scholar

40 Read, Jen’nan Ghazal, “The Politics of Veiling in Comparative Perspective,” in “Muslim Integration in the United States and France,” special issue, Sociology of Religion 68, no. 3 (2007): 232CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Read, Jen’Nan Ghazal and Bartkowski, John P., “To Veil or Not to Veil? A Case Study of Identity Negotiation among Muslim Women in Austin, Texas,” Gender and Society 14, no. 3 (2000): 395–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Hoodfar, Homa, “More Than Clothing: Veiling as an Adaptive Strategy,” in The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, 3–40.Google Scholar

42 Marie Lavigne summarized in Sheila McDonough, 125.

43 Todd, Sharon, “Veiling the ‘Other,’ Unveiling Our ‘Selves’: Reading Media Images of the Hijab,” Canadian Journal of Education 23, no. 4 (1998): 441–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarTodd also points out the positive signifiers of hijāb. However, with historical Eurocentric constructions of the covered face as suspect, it is not likely that positive readings of niqab would be at the forefront of adjudicators’ minds.

44 Hoodfar, “More Than Clothing: Veiling as an Adaptive Strategy,” 5–7.

45 Hoodfar, “The Veil in Their Minds and On Our Heads,” 3.

46 Meshal, “Banners of Faith and Identities in Construct: The Hijāb in Canada,” 72.

47 Hoodfar, “The Veil in Their Minds and On Our Heads,” 3.

48 Jiwani, Discourses of Denial, 189.

49 James, Carl, “Perspectives on Multiculturalism in Canada,” in Possibilities & Limitations: Multicultural Policies and Programs in Canada, ed. James, Carl (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2005), 19–20Google Scholar; Bannerji, Himani, The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism, and Gender (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc., 2000).Google Scholar

50 R v NS, [2012] at para 72.

51 R v NS, [2012] at para 59.

52 Ibid. at para 60.

53 Dhamoon, Rita, Identity/Difference Politics: How Difference is Produced, and Why it Matters (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009), 134.Google Scholar

54 Ibid. at para 73–74.

55 Ibid. at para 70.

56 Srivastava, Sarita, “Troubles with ‘Anti-Racist Multiculturalism’: The Challenges of Anti-Racist and Feminist Activism,” in Race & Racism in 21st-Century Canada: Continuity, Complexity, and Change, eds. Hier, Sean and Singh Bolari, B. (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2007), 291–311Google Scholar; Fleras, Augie, “Racialising Culture/Culturalising Race: Multicultural Racism in a Multicultural Canada,” in Racism, Eh?: A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada, eds. Nelson, Camille and Nelson, Charmaine (Concord, Ontario: Captus Press, 2004), 429–43Google Scholar; Fleras, Augie and Elliott, Jean Leonard, Unequal Relations: An Introduction to Race, Ethnic, and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada, 5th ed. (Toronto: Pearson, 2007), especially 4–26Google Scholar; and Chazan, May, Helps, Lisa, Stanley, Anna, & Thakkar, Sonali, eds., Home and Native Land: Unsettling Multiculturalism in Canada (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2011).Google Scholar

57 Jiwani, Discourses of Denial, 136.

58 Ibid., 187.

59 Najmabadi, Afsaneh, “Gender and Securalism of Modernity: How Can a Muslim Woman Be French?,” Feminist Studies 32, no. 2 (2006): 242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 Yeğenoğlu, Meyda, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Ibid.

62 Razack, Sherene, Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 Jane Doe v Board of Commissioners of Police for the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, [1990] OJ No 1584, 4.

64 R v Ewanchuk, [1999] 1 SCR at para 69.

65 Backhouse, Carnal Crimes; McInnes, John and Boyle, Christine, “Judging Sexual Assault Law Against a Standard of Equality,” University of British Columbia Law Journal 29 (1995), 34Google Scholar; Randall, “Sexual Assault Law and ‘Ideal Victims,’”; and Sheehy, “Evidence Law and the ‘Credibility Testing’ of Women,” 157.

66 http://www.ca/mythbusting/rape-myths/

67 Sheehy, Elizabeth, “Let Me Tell You a Story: English-Canadian Newspapers and Sexual Assault Myths,” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 22, no. 2 (2010): 301–28.Google Scholar

68 R v NS, [2012] at para 77.

69 Gotell, Lise, “Sexual Assault Complainants, Sexual History Evidence and the Disclosure of Personal Records,” Alberta Law Review 43 (2006): 743Google Scholar; Martin, Sheilah, “Some Constitutional Considerations on Sexual Violence Against Women,” Alberta Law Review 32 (1994): 535CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McInnes and Boyle, “Judging Sexual Assault Law Against a Standard of Equality,” 341; and Vandervort, Lucinda, “Honest Beliefs, Credible Lies and Culpable Awareness: Rhetoric, Inequality and Mens Rea in Sexual Assault,” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 42 (2004): 625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70 Sheehy, “Evidence Law and the ‘Credibility Testing’ of Women,” 157 at 173.

71 It is not surprising that the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (Ontario) intervened on behalf of the accused, asserting the “importance of demeanor” in the conduct of a fair trial: http://aspercentre.ca.

72 R v Mills, [1999] 3 SCR 668.

73 R v O’Connor, [1995] SCJ No 98 at para 193.

74 Ibid. at para 194.

75 “Factum of the Intervener, Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund,” at 18.

76 Ibid.

77 R v NS, [2012] at para 67.

78 R v NS, [2012] at para 18.

79 Ibid. at para 27.

80 R v Davis, (1995), 165 AR 243.

81 R v NS, [2012] at para 103.

82 Ibid. at para 104. See: Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C–46, s 714.3, ss 709 and 713; R v Chapdelaine, 2004 ABQB 39 (CanLII); R v Butt (2008), 280 Nfld & PEIR 129.

83 Ekman, Paul, Telling Lies (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992)Google Scholar; Morrison, Barry R., Porter, Laura L., and Fraser, Ian H., “The Role of Demeanour in Assessing the Credibility of Witnesses,” Advocates Quarterly 33 (2007): 170.Google Scholar

84 Canadian Judicial Council, Model Jury Instruction in Criminal Matters, instruction 4.11, “Assessing Evidence,” at 45–46, para 10: www.courts.ns.ca/General/resource_docs/jury_instr_model_April04.pdf.

85 Faryna v Chorny, [1952] 2 DLR 354 at 356.

86 R v Pelletier (1995) 165 AR 138.

87 Law Society of Upper Canada v Neinstein [2010] 99 OR (3d) 1 (Ont Ct A), at para 66.

88 Stone, Marcus, “Instant Lie Detection?: Demeanor and Credibility in Criminal Trials,” Criminal Law Review (1991): 821 at 829Google Scholar; see also, Blumenthal, Jeremy, “A Wipe of the Hands, a Lick of the Lips: The Validity of Demeanor Evidence in Assessing Witness Credibility,” Nebraska Law Review 72 (1993): 1157–1205.Google Scholar

89 Sultana, Hoodfar, and McDonough, The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates.

90 R v NS (2009) at para 29.

91 “Factum of the Intervener, Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund,” at 15.

92 Edward Cody, “France Moves to Fine Muslim Women With Full-Face Islamic Veils,” Washington Post, May 20, 2010, http://www.washington-post.com/w-p-d-y-n/content/story/2010/05/19/ST201006212.html?519.

93 Amnesty International, “Belgium Votes to Ban Full-Face Veils,” Amnesty International, April 30, 2010, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/belgium-votes-ban-full-face-veils-2010-04-3; Adelman, Howard, “Contrasting Commissions on Interculturalism: The Hijab and the Workings of Interculturalism in Québec and France,” Journal of Intercultural Studies 32, no. 3 (2011): 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fernando, Mayanthi L, “Reconfiguring Freedom: Muslim Piety and the Limits of Secular Law and Public Discourse in France,” American Ethnologist 37, no. 1 (2010): 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tarhan, Gulce, “Roots of the Headscarf Debate: Laicism and Secularism in France and Turkey,” Journal of Political Inquiry 4 (2011).Google Scholar

94 Bill 94, An Act to establish guidelines governing accommodation requests within the Administration and certain institutions, 1st Sess, 39th Leg, Quebec, 2010 (“Bill 94, 2010”).

95 Fournier and See, “The ‘Naked Face’ of Secular Exclusion,” 63.

96 See: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/12/19/f-niqab-list.html.

97 The proposed Charter of Quebec Values would prohibit the wearing of any religious symbols, including yarmulkas, kippas, turbans, burkas, hijabs, niqabs, and large crosses, in the giving or receiving of any civil service. Employees who refuse to conform would be fired. While some employers might be given the option to opt out of the regime for the first five years, daycare workers and elementary school teachers, primarily women, would be denied this opt-out, presumably on the assumption that wearing such symbols corrupts children: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Attacks+against+Muslim+women+increasing/8990742/story.html.

98 Kim Mackrael and Les Perreaux, “Muslim Women Must Show Faces When Taking Citizenship Oath,” Globe and Mail, December 12, 2011, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/muslim-women-must- show-faces- when-taking-citizenship-oath/article2267972.

99 Fournier and See, “The ‘Naked Face’ of Secular Exclusion,” 63.

100 Brief of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, at para 10: http://caircan.ca/downloads/CAIRCAN_Factum_33989. Martha Nussbaum has asserted that laws “often put religious minorities in something like Antigone’s dilemma: either they have to violate a sacred requirement or they have to break the law and/or forfeit some state-granted privilege”: Nussbaum, Martha, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality (New York: Basic Books, 2008), at 167.Google ScholarIn the case of the niqab, however, only women face such choices. See also, Bakht, Natasha, “Objection, Your Honour! Accommodating Niqab-Wearing Women in Courtrooms,” in Legal Practice and Cultural Diversity, eds. Grillo, Ralphet al. (London: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 115.Google Scholar

101 Fournier and See, “The ‘Naked Face’ of Secular Exclusion,” 63.